


Stress Levels: Maximum

by Malevelynce



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bagels, Cute, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Female Pidge | Katie Holt, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Finals, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Open to Interpretation, Pidge Birthday Exchange 2018, Pidge | Katie Holt-centric, Platonic Relationships, Stress Relief, atla episode "nightmares and daydreams", college final stress, inspired by avatar the last airbender, loosely inspired, poor stressed pidgeon, tired pidge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 02:58:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14179032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malevelynce/pseuds/Malevelynce
Summary: Pidge has finals next week and her friends start to notice the obvious signs of stress. She's not eating well, hardly sleeping, and is worrying her friends to the point that Keith comes up with an idea to help calm her down and bring everybody together.





	Stress Levels: Maximum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Astraia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astraia/gifts).



> This is for @Astraia for the Pidge Birthday Exchange!!  
> I left the relationships open to interpretation so that all may enjoy the fluff I present to you!

Pidge woke up surrounded by textbooks, the smell of mountain dew, and a horrible, pounding headache. Running a hand through the mess nesting upon her head, she groped in the grotesquely bright light for her glasses before shoving them back onto her face. And as the world came back into clarity, she noticed the clock. And she was fucking late to her class.

Slapping on some deodorant and shoving her bare feet into shoes that definitely needed socks, Pidge was out the door, jogging to make it to her stat class.

Jesus, she needed a break. But with final exams this week, she could hardly take a few hours to sleep, much less eat or actual maintain her own hygiene (which was already poor to start with). Still, she made it to class with an hour left, and the only one who seemed to actually take note of her unruly appearance was Keith.

As Pidge slipped into the seat next to him, she could feel his eyes narrow on her as he took account of her messy hair, bloodshot eyes, and day-old clothes. “You alright?” he asked under his breath as he wrote something down, keeping his eyes trained on the strict asshole of a teacher.

“Just peachy,” Pidge responded, adjusting her glasses and promptly rooting through Keith’s bag for an extra sheet of paper and a pencil. She had her phone stuffed in her sports bra and nothing else on her person.

Rolling his eyes, Keith didn’t ask anything else of the obviously unorganized girl, but grabbed a pencil for her when she let out an exasperated sigh. Iverson was a pain in the ass and didn’t even let the damn class use laptops, differing from literally every other professor at their college. But, he was a good teacher, Pidge guessed--she’d certainly had much worse than this prick.

Hardly soon enough, the class ended and Pidge handed Keith back his pencil while folding the paper neatly and tucking it next to her phone as surreptitiously as possible.

“You can’t keep this up,” Keith sighed, swinging his bag onto his shoulder. When he only received a blank, sleep-deprived look in response, he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You stayed up studying again. It’s bad for your health, Pidgeon.”

Pidge avoided his gaze, knowing he was right and that she needed to take care of herself, but she just felt so overwhelmed. There was nothing she could do but but stay up, trying to absorb as much information as possible. “Well, I’ve got a date with a coding textbook, so I’ll see you around, yeah?”

Pursuing his lips, Pidge knew that Keith was fighting his instinct to immediately snap back at her, but he just ended up nodding, following the girl out of the classroom. “Don’t forget your four thirty class, okay?”

She let a smile split across her face as she enveloped him in a brief hug. “Don’t worry about me, I’ve got it under control.” And she knew he didn’t believe her. But, there was nothing Pidge could about it; she really did need to get back to studying. No lecture about her health was going to keep her from that.

As Pidge was on her way back to her dorm--just a ten minute walk--her phone buzzed in her bra. She almost missed the call with the amount of time it took to wrench the gross thing out of there. But when she picked up, Lance’s forced conversational tone clued her in to the fact that Keith had most definitely asked him to call her.

Pidge sighed, “Hey there, Lance.” She fought a smile at the way those boys always seemed to keep a better eye on her than they did themselves.

“How’s everything going with you? Wanna grab bagels?” Lance asked, doing his best to feign actual interest when Pidge knew damn well he just wanted to make sure she wasn’t neglecting to feed herself (which she was, but that didn’t matter).

As Pidge walked into her building, she let herself be coerced by Lance’s sly words, and at the end of the conversation, his begging. She just couldn’t say no when she could hear the desperation in his voice, “Please, Pidge, I feel like I haven’t eaten in years and Hunk is over Shay’s house right now and I’m starving! You know I hate getting food by myself. Come with me!”

Pidge had to admit, his acting wasn’t half bad. So she agreed reluctantly with a stiff laugh, compromising that she would meet him in ten minutes. With a smiled sigh, she slipped into her dorm and attempted to move up the scale from looking like a walking trash bag to perhaps a walking recycling bin.

Meeting Lance on the street corner that laid roughly between their separate dorms, he snaked an arm around her shoulder, pulling her tight against him. There was something pleasant in the ease in which they walked down the street, Pidge safely tucked beneath his arm, a kindness for her short stature in his stride. It was refreshing to spend time with Lance, she decided, allowing herself to melt a little bit more into his side, taking comfort in his warmth.

Once Pidge had a bacon, egg, and cheese bagel sitting in front of her, she had to admit she was in a much better mood. Three bottles of Mountain Dew probably wasn’t the healthiest dinner she’d had in a while, and she could feel herself lifting as she stuffed her face with the bagel. And, Lance had paid for it, so it tasted even better (as free stuff usually does).

“Ohmigosh, Pidge, you’re not going to believe what happened in my english class yesterday. This random chick would not shut up, and so I . . .” And she had to admit that Lance’s crazy stories had a way of lifting her mood, too.

A small smile playing on her lips, Pidge threw out her trash and gave Lance a gentle look. “Thanks,” she let out, shoving her hands in her pockets and pushing the door open with her back.

Lance let a bright smile coat his lips. “Anything for you.” His amusing stories about whoever in whatever class entertained them both as they made their way back to their dorms. And as soon as she saw her building looming above her, an ugly scar against the bright blue sky, her mood instantly plummeted once again, knowing that piles of textbooks laid crouching in wait for her to return home.

“Hey, don’t look so sad!” Lance immediately chastised with a concerned brow. He wrapped her up in his arms, waiting a moment for her to soften into his embrace. “You’re doing great.” The sincerity in his voice nearly made Pidge choke up, the burn of tears in her eyes (she was blaming it on her lack of sleep, nothing even remotely sentimental, obviously). “Call me if you need anything at all, okay?”

With a soft smile and more words of encouragement flung her way, the two parted and Pidge tried not to let the heaviness of her responsibilities darken her mood too much. As soon as she walked into her dorm, she managed to slip her shoes off before Allura picked the girl off the ground, squeezing her in a tight hug. Pidge really couldn’t breath with Allura’s strong arms around her, flinging her around helplessly.

“Pidge! Why didn’t you call me? I know I wasn’t home last night but . . .” And the rest of her words were a bit of a blurry mess as Pidge struggled to somehow let Allura know that she couldn’t breathe. Soon enough, though, she realized that she was practically strangling the small girl and gentle let her go with a squeak of an apology.

Dropping her purse by the door, Pidge collapsed back onto the couch, which was still a mess of half-empty mountain dew and textbooks looking a little beat up. Allura looked like she was going to sit down next to her but after she eyed the couch, she settled for a overstuffed chair across from it.

Her brows were knit together in concern as she played with the end of one perfect silver curl. “Are you alright?” Ignoring her, Pidge just grabbed the closest textbook and dropped it into her lap, flipping through the pages idly. “I just don’t want you to hurt yourself or end up doing poorly on your final because you aren’t taking care of yourself . . .” Her voice was small and unsure, a contrast to her usual confident demeanor.

With a sigh, Pidge let her hands rest on the testbook, her glasses slipping off her nose as she started at the carpet. “What else am I supposed to do, huh? I can’t _not_ study because then I really will fail. But every time I try and take a moment for myself all that’s running through my head is fucking math problems that I don’t know how to solve!” Her words began soft but grew to fill with anger as she snapped her head up to look at Allura, tears pricking the corners of her eyes.

“Oh, honey.” And Allura was pushing empty soda bottles out of the way and closing textbooks to sit next to Pidge and let the poor thing cry quietly into her shoulder. Rubbing circles onto her back, Allura gently whispered, “Everything is going to be alright, try not to worry about it so much.”

Pidge really wasn’t the most physically affectionate person and yet here was was, on her fourth hug of the day. Maybe that’s what sleep loss can do to a person. It didn’t stop her from enjoying Allura’s soft words and warm embrace any less.

With a slightly clearer head, Pidge went back to studying before she had to leave for her 4:30 class which was an easy lecture that she may or may not have taken a nap through. But as she shook herself awake and the teacher gave his closing remarks, Ryner slipped a piece of paper to her with a tight smile and a quick nod. Pidge blessed the ancients for friends who could read her like a book (and for Ryner’s amazing note-taking abilities).

She looked over the notes as she strolled back to her dorm, making a mental note to thank Ryner profusely when she wasn’t just waking up from a nap. Absorbing herself in reading, she meandered into the elevator and only stopped to actually look up when she couldn’t find her keys to get into her dorm. With a sigh, she pushed into her room and dropped her bookbag on the floor before slipping off her shoes.

Her heart nearly dropped out of her ass as Allura’s bright cheer scared the shit out of her. Especially given the fact that there were four extra human beings standing in the common area of her dorm.

“What?! What’s going on?” Pidge demanded, one hand clutching her chest as she stared wide-eyed at her roommate and four friends. Hunk was proudly bearing a small cake and Shiro even had a cone birthday hat strapped on his head.

Keith ran a hand through his hair, trace evidence of a blush lingering on his cheeks. “Well, we knew you were kinda stressed, so . . .” his voice was tight and awkward as he avoided Pidge’s gaze. 

“It’s dumb!” Lance announced, slapping a hand down on Keith’s shoulder and smiling wide at Pidge. “But we thought that it would be nice if we organized a spa party to relax you!”

It _was_ dumb. So dumb. But the endearing look on everyone’s faces was intoxicating, leading the girl to burst out in giggles, hiding her smile behind pale fingers.

“I brought some aromatherapy bath bombs but then I remembered that you don’t have a bathtub so I looked up alternate uses for bath bombs and found you can use them as an exfoliate so I crushed it up and added some other stuff and I, uh, really hope it works out?” Shiro gave his long-winded explanation with a sheepish smile, holding up a plastic bag of grey-ish clumps.

She couldn’t help but laugh, snatching the fake bath bombs and giving Shiro a brief hug, telling him that she really appreciated it and that he totally didn’t have to do that (really though, she probably wouldn’t use crushed and clumped bath bombs ever, but it’s the thought that counts, right?).

They sat in a sadly-shaped circle, Pidge curled in the center of the couch, nestled between Lance and Keith, everyone enjoying a piece of Hunk’s delicious cake. “I was just thinking that no one can have a bad day if they have cake,” he told her with a small smile as he took another bite of his piece with a smile.

“I love it, Hunk. You guys really didn’t have to this. But jesus am I glad it did, this is so fucking good,” Pidge said around a bite of cake, devouring her piece in seconds flat.

Bumping his shoulder into hers, Lance gave her a small smile. “We knew you weren’t taking care of yourself properly, so we wanted to make sure that you weren’t wasting away all by yourself.”

“Hey! I’m out of the dorm for one night and you all are acting like I’d just let her starve to death without me!” Allura protested from her spot on the floor beside Shiro and Hunk, their shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter, trying to avoid getting on Allura’s bad side. Nevertheless, she swats at both of the boys with an irritated expression filled with mirth.

Lance countered with the fact that he was talking more “cosmetically”, holding up his variety of face masks that he’d brought with him.

With a sigh Keith drops his head onto Pidge’s frail shoulder, causing the girl to let out a small noise of shock given that Keith was even less of a touchy-feely type person than Pidge was. “I worry about you too much, Pidgeon,” he admitted quietly as the others laughed about something Lance had said.

“You’re too good for me,” she whispered in return, letting her own head fall to rest atop his. “You don’t have to worry so much, Keith. I promise I’m doing fine. Plus my final is in two days, and then it’s my birthday, so there’ll be lots to celebrate, right?” Keith definitely picked up on the excited lilt to her voice as she nuzzled her face into his hair.

Keith had to fight back the smile that spread across his lips as he remembered his plans for the girl’s birthday, knowing that he had put a lot of effort into that and had merely thrown together this silly little party for the sake of both her mental and physical health. “Mm-hm. Lots to celebrate,” he agreed with a smile.

The group dissolved into laughter and the warmth of being together, stress and worry floating off Pidge’s shoulders as she focused on what was truly important to her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> I had a lot of fun writing this and am already started on the sequel/second chapter.  
> Comments and kudos mean the world to me so if you enjoyed this, please feel free to leave one down below!  
> Thanks so much :)


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